Wednesday, 1 August 2012

Scouts' Jambourette 2012

The last two weeks have been a busy and bustling time for us. There have been about 2000 Scouts and Scout leaders staying in the Castle grounds for their biennial Jamborette and we got lots of them out and about, helping us with some tasks a bit too big for us to tackle on our own!

View of the Bair Castle and the Scout Camp

The Scouts did a great job of installing a new bike rack in the Glen Tilt car park - so now there's somewhere to securely lock your bike up if you cycle up for a picnic or a stroll.

They also refurbished one of the flights of steps along the riverbanks trail, beside the caravan park.

We took several groups up Glen Tilt to thin out a stand of birch trees that has been becoming too thickly overgrown. Their hard work will help the trees by opening up the canopy, letting in more light and allowing them to grow larger and stronger. Opening up the canopy and letting in more light will also help the plans and shrubs that make up the woodland undergrowth, making it a more diverse mosaic - and better for herbivores too!

Close up of the Camp - lots of tents!

There was plenty of hard work too from the groups that we took out to Calvine to do a bit of repair work to a section of the historical, "Wade's Road," an old military route that was built to improve the access for British troops to the Highlands. Large sections of the track had been becoming waterlogged because of inadequate drainage so we set to work with picks and shovels and no small amount of hard graft to put in cross drains and drainage ditches. The result was a noticeable difference to the state of the track after much of the running water had been diverted away.

Deciding where to put a cross-drain to drain standing water from Wade's Road

All of the Scouts that we had out with us on tasks were brilliant this year, they worked really hard and were a credit to their leaders and their home troops. It was also quite exciting for us to meet some scouts from pretty far-flung places such as Norway, Canada, Japan and Russia. The "Austrian" scouts from Aberdeen were also very entertaining (and convincing!).

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Based in Blair Atholl, the Atholl Estates Ranger Service operates throughout the Estate. We assist visitors in their understanding and enjoyment of the area, and also play a role in countryside education and conservation. We manage 165 miles of waymarked trails for walkers and cyclists on the estate.